The Guild’s Latest Membership Landmark

The Guild of One-Name Studies has reached another membership milestone. In 2015 the Guild of One-Name Studies broke all its previous memberships records by recruiting some 418 new members with a further 15 previous Guild members re-joining the Guild during the year. A total of 433 new members. This milestone follows a very successful year for the Guild of One-Name Studies in 2015 when the Guild achieved its highest membership ever – some 2,847 members.

Since the 1st January 2015 some 418 members joined the Guild of One-Name Studies, 233 were from the UK, 90 from the US, 14 from New Zealand, 43 from Australia, 16 from Canada and 9 from the Republic of Ireland. The remainder were from various other countries. 44% of the new members were from non-UK regions, which is a valuable step towards increased worldwide membership for the Guild. There were also 15 returning members: 9 from the UK, 3 from the US, 1 from Australia and 2 from Canada. The Guild now has 2,847 members spread across the world, studying over 8,700 individual surnames.
The continued increase in the Guild’s membership every year since the Guild was founded in 1979 (an achievement not many Family History organisations have managed) is a testament to the popularity of the Guild and the benefits it offers to its members – as the following table shows:

New members per month:

Year	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec	Total	Average
2015	27	22	44	95	29	29	28	24	37	29	22	32	418	34.8
2014	34	64	14	15	10	21	11	15	21	21	27	30	283	23.6
2013	17	53	25	24	12	9	19	18	27	20	15	6	245	20.4

Details of all the Guild facilities can be found at:

http:\\www.guild-dev.org/about-the-guild/membership-benefits
where you can find out:

• more about undertaking a One-Name Study
• the benefits of joining the Guild of One-Name Studies, and the assistance members of the Guild can provide to anyone researching their family history on any of the 8,700-plus names currently being researched.

Cliff Kemball, the Guild’s Publicity Officer, said today:

This is yet another significant milestone for the Guild of One-Name Studies and is a testament to the continued development of the Guild internationally and the benefits membership provides. We hope that this trend continues into 2016 and beyond and reaffirms the Guild as the world’s leading organisation for One-Name Studies.”